Berrick Ford's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Set in modern-day Acapulco, a small team of detectives wade through the increasing violence of gangs and cartels, where every night another two or three people lose their lives, widows pray in church while their sons are recruited to crime, their daughters are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves, and orphans wear plastic bottles around their necks, a drop of glue at the bottom, the fumes a way to ward off hunger.
Emilia Cruz is the newest detective on the team – the first and only woman. The welcome mat is deployed only to try and trip her up as she investigates a murder, kidnapping, and millions of counterfeit pesos, all somehow linked.
I felt Cruz’s fear and frustration, the blazing heat of the Mexican sun, and I drooled at the lush descriptions of fish tacos, ceviche with fresh limes, and ice-cold mojitos. The plot was tight, the writing superb, and the climax thrill: everything you could want, the complete package.
This is the first book in the series and I immediately bought and read the next eight books.
The author is a former CIA agent who lived in Mexico and Central America, and is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal. That showed in her attention to detail and the 'real feel' of the world she created.
I powered through the rest of the books in the series and am eagerly awaiting her new release next year.

This is a non-fiction anthology of stories from men and women who have worked in bomb disposal across the decades, published by Felix Fund, the UK Bomb Disposal Charity.

I must express an interest here, as it has been a charity that I’ve supported for many years.

I was completely rapt reading accounts of their work from Northern Ireland in the 1970s, the Falklands in the 1980s, to Iraq and Afghanistan in later years, and also working on devices found from both world wars.

Their deprecating humour, sometimes very dark, and their extraordinary daily heroism makes for riveting reading.

This is a series of six short reads set in London with the eponymous PI Ryan Kyd. He's a man down on his luck, retired from the Met due to a dodgy knee. But his luck finally turns when he employs a new secretary/assistant, the lovely Carly. Poor Ryan is love sick for the gorgeous and gobby Carly. She's a streetwise sarf-Londoner who kicks everything up a gear with her wit and street-smarts.

The dialogue is a huge winner, funny, occasionally poignant, often downright hilarious.

But it's not all comedy - the books are also tightly plotted with a circus of weird and wonderful characters, quite a few on the shady side of legit.

Imagine a younger version of 'Minder' and you won't be far off.